Laura Microulis is a specialist in European and American material culture of the long nineteenth century—specifically the intersections of art, craft, and industry; the nature of patronage relationships; and the narrative life cycle of objects and interiors. After an earlier career in finance, she pursued a longstanding interest in art and design history, earning both her MA and PhD from Bard Graduate Center. She has published articles in Furniture History, Studies in the Decorative Arts, and The Magazine Antiques and has taught several classes for New York University’s School of Professional Studies. Microulis is co-curator of Philip Webb: Truth in Beauty (forthcoming September 2027), the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to the influential British architect and designer. She previously co-curated Sonia Delaunay: Living Art (2024) and was part of the curatorial team responsible for Majolica Mania: Transatlantic Pottery in England and the United States, 1850–1915(2021). The catalogue published to accompany Sonia Delaunay: Living Art, for which she served as co-editor, received the 2025 Daedalus Foundation Exhibition Catalogue Award, the 2026 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award, and recognition in AIGA’s 50 Books | 50 Covers competition.
Co-editor, with Waleria Dorogova, Sonia Delaunay: Living Art, exh. cat. (Bard Graduate Center, 2024), with essays “Tapestries: ‘A play of colored wools,’” 409–47, and “Expanding the Reach of Simultanism,” 477–93.
Recipient of the 2025 Daedalus Foundation Exhibition Catalogue Award and the 2026 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award
“Gillow & Company, 1862–1897” in Dictionary of British and Irish Furniture Makers Online (March 2021).
Co-editor, with Susan Weber, Catherine Arbuthnott, Jo Briggs, Eleanor Hughes, and Earl Martin, Majolica Mania: Transatlantic Pottery in England and the United States, 1850–1915, exh. cat. (Bard Graduate Center, 2020), with essays including “’Acquisitions of the million’: Majolica by John Adams & Co. and Adams & Bromley,” vol. 2, 187–209, “’Quaint dragon vases… and other choice specimens of the Potter’s Art’: Majolica by T.C. Brown-Westhead, Moore & Co,” vol. 2, 211–37, “’The colors are rich and often a trifle gaudy’: Majolica Made in Trenton, New Jersey,” vol. 3, 73–111, “’Crockery City’ Majolica: George Morley and the Potteries of East Liverpool, Ohio,” vol. 3, 149–75, and “’A man could do very well if he could get a good glaze’: Other American Majolica Manufacturers,” vol. 3, 177–95.
Awarded the 2021 Historians of British Art Book Prize for an outstanding multi-authored book on the history of British art, architecture, and visual culture
Co-curator, with Susan Weber and Catherine Arbuthnott
Philip Webb: Truth in BeautyBard Graduate Center Gallery
Forthcoming September 2027
Co-curator, with Waleria Dorogova
Sonia Delaunay: Living ArtBard Graduate Center Gallery
February 23–July 7, 2024
Institutional Project Co-Lead, with Earl Martin
Majolica Mania: Transatlantic Pottery in England and the United States, 1850–1915Bard Graduate Center Gallery
September 24, 2021–January 2, 2022
The Walters Art Museum
February 27–August 7, 2022
The Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent
October 15, 2022–February 26, 2023
